


MC1R - RED(WOLF)

by ofcorsetstrash



Series: The Red Wolf [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Assisted Suicide, Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Rey Kenobi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-06-08 07:11:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6844441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofcorsetstrash/pseuds/ofcorsetstrash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time there was a girl who died.</p><p> </p><p>(Do NOT read this without reading Red Wolf first. You have been warned.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	MC1R - RED(WOLF)

**Author's Note:**

> I am so so sorry for writing this. I am a horrible person. I cried while writing this.

Behind her eyelids, Keno Ren imagined an ocean.

 

She could see it, gleaming under a blue-white sun, the water so clear and pure you felt you could see all the way to the bottom. Nothing lived in this ocean. Nothing could survive in the high concentration of sodium and sulfur and zinc and copper, calcium, chloride, iron, lithium, magnesium, silver…

 

There was an island. As hard as Keno tried to keep her ocean empty, the island crept in like a thief, stealing away her balance and control. It was a desolate place, a chunk of rock with no beauty or form to be admired. Nothing but straggly grasses and pale twisted scrub brush could grow in the cracks here. A few seabirds would stop to rest here, and a handful of rodents and insects could eek out nutrition from nibbling grass and licking up minerals from the sea-spray, but surely nothing else. Yet, on one corner, huddled against a boulder to break the wind stood a tiny one-room house. No one could be said to actually live, there, but perhaps someone existed.

 

The shuttle’s alarm hadn’t gone off yet, but Keno was done with meditation, with trying to erase the island from her ocean. It wouldn’t matter soon, anyway. She turned off the impending alarm and turned off the autopilot. With a sure hand, she eased the ship down through the atmosphere of the blue world with no name.

 

Keno let the Force guide her. It was strong enough, in the place she was heading, pulled towards the person she was seeking like iron filings to a magnet. She skimmed across the surface of the ocean, her ocean, this ocean. A flutter of emotion passed over her face, but that was alright; she was alone. Disgust, frustration, fear, excitement. Soon she would be stronger.

 

There. There was the island. The island that haunted her. She wondered if she had enough power to crumble the rock into the sea. The answer was probably yes.

 

A clear plateau of whorled grey-green stone served as a perfect place to land the shuttle. Keno turned off the engines and listened for a while to the sound of the ship cooling down, metal contracting and clicking. There was no hurry, but there was a sense of urgency. Supreme Leader Snoke’s training had been harsh, but she could feel the strength it gave her. He had deemed her ready, at last, to cut the last ties that bound her to the life she had once lived.

 

Once Keno Ren killed her last attachments, her weaknesses, then she could be truly free.

 

She reached for her mask, sitting on the floor next to her, and the memory came back, unbidden and unwanted.

 

_ In another life, she might have been pretty. _

 

Damn him. Damn Hux and his loud thoughts. She hadn’t wanted to hear him, but she had. She didn’t care. She didn’t care that she wasn’t beautiful.

 

But she cared what he thought of her.

 

Keno snatched up the mask and lowered it into place, covering her features, protecting the world from her and her from the world. Why? Why did she have to think of him now? Her hands shook with anger at herself as she left the shuttle and began her walk across the island.

 

In a way, she was grateful to Hux. It was because of him that she could feel so unbearably angry and pained. From the very first time she had met him, she had admired him. His control, his command, his dignity.

 

His face, so careful with his feelings but even the most neutral expression couldn’t hide the fire in those pale eyes. The ridiculous hair that he so obviously was just a little vain about.

 

Keno laughed at herself. There was no one around to hear. What a fool she was. For years, her shyness had held her back, kept her quiet. She had held her feelings close to her heart, where no one could see them. And when she was alone she would take them out and hold them up to see how they looked in the open. She’d wanted to say something so desperately. When the Supreme Leader gave her the mission to go to help Hux find the Red Wolf, she’d nearly cried. A mission with just the two of them? Together they could track down the rogue Jedi, achieve a victory for the First Order. Together.

 

But no. Ben Solo happened. Keno saw red for a moment. He always ruined  _ everything _ . Even when she was a child, she could remember every small slight against her, every tiny offence. He never meant to hurt her, or so the grown-ups said.

 

Keno didn’t care anymore. She just wanted Ben dead. Preferably by her hand. Preferably in great pain.

 

It would hurt Hux. But sometimes pain was necessary.

 

She rounded the corner, and there was the house. A little smaller than she remembered, more weathered, the roof sagging a little into the stone walls. A few pieces of glass hanging from strings tinkled against each other in the breeze.

 

The door opened, and a brightly smiling face peered out.

 

“You’re here!”

 

Keno Ren flinched. She should have anticipated this. Larna Kenobi was, after all, quite powerful with the Force. Rey’s mother adjusted her dress and walked up to Keno Ren.

 

“You’re here to kill me, aren’t you? How wonderful!” Larna stood without fear, only joy on her tired, lined face as she smiled at Keno. “Come in! You must come in! There’s a storm coming…”

 

Keno glanced up at the cloudless sky. Larna laughed. “The weather here changes so fast. We should take care of things quickly so that you can leave before it hits and strands you here. Wouldn’t that be awful?” She giggled and took Keno’s hand to lead her inside.

 

Keno shivered at the woman’s touch. Larna Kenobi had never been the most… stable person. Growing up with a powerful attachment and affinity for the Force in a world where no one could teach her, no one even knew what the Force was, well. A mind that already had a predisposition towards illness could only be badly affected. Luke had found her far too late in life to do much to help her, but he had tried to help Rey. What a fool. He could do nothing to help either Larna or Rey.

 

The loss of a daughter had broken Larna.

 

The loss of a second destroyed her.

 

Larna was speaking, her words tumbling over each other like small stones in a river bed. “I’ve been thinking about this,” she said, smiling over her shoulder at Keno. “As a young girl, I thought that one day I would die in bed surrounded by my children.” She laughed. “I guess one is more than I had a right to hope for. I’m so glad you are here. Do you have Father’s lightsaber?”

 

This was not going the way Keno had imagined or planned. “I… yes. I do.” Taken from the Red Wolf. It paled in comparison to what he had taken from her.

 

Larna sighed happily. “That’s good.”

 

There, propped up on the one rickety table, next to a small bowl of berries and some folded netting, sat a doll. Keno’s breath caught in her throat. It had been Rey’s doll, before she went to train with Skywalker. It was made of rough fabric, stuffed with cotton and sweet-smelling grasses. It wore a tattered patchwork dress, but a tiny pink smile had been lovingly stitch into its face below green sea-glass eyes. The doll’s hair was real human hair, a mother’s treasure given to a daughter.

 

Larna followed Keno’s gaze, and for the first time her smile faltered. “I really don’t want too much,” she said softly, contemplating the small toy. “But, if I may ask some favors…”

 

She turned back to Keno with that mad grin. “The first one you know. I would be so grateful if you used the lightsaber. Almost like a warrior’s death, yes?” She giggled. “And, if it’s alright, I would like to see your face. It’s been… a long time.”

 

Keno blinked rapidly, dispelling the stinging in her eyes. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t… but her hands came up of their own accord and tipped her mask back to sit on top of her head.

 

“Oh,” said Larna. As if someone had stepped on her toes. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes into the fine lines and wrinkles of her face. “You… you’re so beautiful. I always knew you would be-”

 

“Don’t.” said Keno Ren, her stomach twisting into knots. This was too much. How was she supposed to kill this woman, who was so happy? Keno couldn’t tell if she was happy to die or happy to see someone who looked like Rey.

 

“Both,” said Larna. “It’s both. I’m sorry I’m… too much. But I’m ready. Wait…” She turned and grabbed the doll from the table, tenderly cradling it in her hands. She smiled down at it. “It’s silly and sentimental, but…” Two tears fell onto the doll’s face. “Could you take her with you? She would get lonely here without me. You don’t have to keep her, I know… I know that would be too much to ask. But…” Her voice faltered and she cleared her throat. “Maybe there’s a little girl somewhere in the Outer Rim who would like a friend.”

 

Keno Ren stared at the doll. She didn’t want it. This was supposed to be about severing the ties of the past, not clinging to them. Larna’s smile faded. “Sorry,” she breathed. “I knew it was too much to ask…”

 

Keno held out a hand, the motion strong. Her arms didn’t shake at all. Her face showed nothing, but Larna’s face lit up like the sunrise as she gently placed the doll in Keno’s hand. “Thank you,” she whispered. The doll was so small, barely longer than Keno’s hand. She wrapped her fingers around it.

 

“Where-” Keno had to clear her throat to keep speaking. “You always loved watching the ocean. Let’s go out to the cliff.”

 

“Oh! Yes! That’s a wonderful idea!” Once again, Larna tugged Keno Ren through the door, this time out of the sad house, out into the salt and sulfur air. They walked together out to the small cliff, hardly even deserving the name, only fifteen feet or so above the water. At the edge, Larna turned back to smile at Keno yet again.

 

“I do love looking at the ocean,” she said. “But I’ve been looking at it a lot. There’s something far better to have in my eyes when you kill me.”

 

Keno had to swallow back bile. The Supreme Leader had been wrong. She wasn’t strong enough to do this. What… who could do this? Who could take the life of someone so willing to go? So ready to lay down on the altar with a smile?

 

Larna’s hands lifted, hesitated, and then continued on their way to pull Keno into an embrace. “I’m sorry,” Larna whispered. “I’m sorry you were born into a world that demands such hard things. I… I want to help you… in any way I can. Please let me help you…”

 

The woman smelled so familiar it startled free memories that Keno had long buried. Her mind scrambled for balance, for freedom from this awful captivity.

 

“Here,” whispered Larna. Her worn hands found Keno’s lightsaber at her belt, tugged it free, and pressed it into Keno’s empty hand. “I… I want-”

 

Keno Ren powered on the saber, aimed right through Larna’s chest. The woman’s eyes widened for a moment, the smelled of charred flesh acrid and sickly-sweet in the wind. And then Larna Kenobi smiled, a real smile with no pain or madness inside. Thin fingers traced along Keno’s cheek, and then she was gone, tumbling back over the edge into the saltwater.

 

After a moment, Keno Ren powered off the lightsaber and tucked it back into her belt. It took three attempts to get it into place. She didn’t feel any different. No new power or strength flooded her. If anything, she felt a bit weaker; she couldn’t seem to stop shaking.

  
Carefully, she unfastened the top of her robe and tucked the doll into the inside pocket, where the layers of her clothes could hide it close to her heart.

**Author's Note:**

> This was literally written in one sitting and I didn't even re-read it at all because I was so done crying. So, if there are any typos or anything, let me know...


End file.
